Top public schools have put it in their curricula and David Cameron has even
set out to measure it, now churches are embarking on a drive to teach
“happiness” to the nation.

In an initiative being spearheaded by Katharine Welby, daughter of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby, churches across the country are set to start running special courses on happiness.

Miss Welby, who recently spoke publicly about her own battle with depression, said it is part of the church’s “calling” to help tackle the often hidden causes of some of the most intractable problems in families and society.

The so-called “Happiness Course” combines basic principles of secular popular psychology with ideas such as forgiveness and gratitude, promoted for centuries by Christianity.

It is based on the principle that applying simple Biblical ideas such as “counting your blessings” or forgiving enemies could actively improve people’s psychological well-being.

In its structure and style, it has parallels with the Alpha Course, the short introduction to Christianity which became a worldwide phenomenon, taken by more than 15 million people in churches, schools, workplaces and even prisons.

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But unlike Alpha, the Happiness Course does not have overtly Christian content and is not designed as a tool to make converts.

It was designed by Andrew Parnham, a church leader in London, with Livability, the Christian education and disability charity formerly known as the Shaftesbury Society, where Miss Welby is a coordinator.

Mr Parnham said he was heavily influenced by Prof Martin Seligman, the popular US psychologist who inspired David Cameron’s drive to measure the nation’s “well-being”.

A former president of the American Psychological Association, Prof Seligman pioneered of the idea of “positive psychology”, which focuses less on mental illness and people’s problems and more on what makes them happy.

The course, run in four sessions, has an emphasis on encouraging people to improve their own well-being through steps like making time for the things which they enjoy or forgiving others.

So far a few hundred people have been through the course in around 30 locations including churches, homes and even offices.

But the charity is now embarking on a plan to train leaders to run courses around the country.

Miss Welby emphasised that, despite being run through churches, it is not intended simply as a new tactic to promote Christianity through psychology.

“We are not here to say this is the formula, I think people of no faith and all faiths have done it many times,” she said.

“This is about getting people to reflect on their lives.

“Churches are in a unique position in that you have got a church in every community.

“So, regardless of motivation or outcome, we want to bring well-being in to those communities through those churches.

“We are in an absolutely unique position and we see it as our calling to be a resource to those communities.

“In the same way as churches started hospitals and schools, we have got these great reformers throughout history who were driven by their faith.

“It is about serving the community.”

She added: “If people want to explore deeper meaning in a Christian context we would love that but it is a link for people to make themselves and explore in their own time and at their own pace.”

David Webber, chief executive of Livability, added: “People are always going to be suspicious as soon as they hear that we are a Christian organisation that we are going to try to proselytise them into boredom but that is not what it is about.

“It is not something that we are expecting people to do to people it’s something we expect people to do with people – it’s not some weird treatment that we are dabbling in.”